8 Ladies Who Loved Lipliner Long Before Kylie Jenner Did

The checkered history of lipliner is pretty interesting. After the way it was used in the '80s (#neverforget), people either love it or loathe it. Recently, it's started to make a resurgence in the beauty space. Suddenly, drawn-in lips are gaining some serious footing again.

But, this trend hasn't always followed the bigger-is-better motto of today's lined lips. While pencil has always been a way to help women and men manipulate their mouths, exactly what that manipulation looks like — and how extreme it is — has been in flux since the dawn of makeup.

Where did it all begin? Hop into our lipliner time capsule and take a look at how this trend has evolved. From Clara Bow to Marilyn Monroe to Lil Kim, see the ladies who loved their liner, and the trends they launched with it.

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Photo: REX USA.

Doll Lips

Clara Bow was the golden girl of the 1920s, and her early use of lipliner spawned the product's rise to fame. Clara used liner to accentuate her Cupid's bow and lower lip, leaving the corners of her mouth nearly bare. The result was a small, doll-shaped mouth — a far cry from the larger-than-life pouts of today.

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Photo: REX USA.

Exaggerated Cupid's Bow

In the 1930s, Marlene Dietrich ushered in the idea of over-drawing the top lip. She exaggerated the Cupid's bow and the corners of the mouth, which made her upper lip appear larger. Instead of a rounder cupid's bow, the peaks of her lips came to sharp edges, and the dark line along the bottom curve of her lower lip also amped up the overall shape.

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Photo: REX USA.

Flat Top

Enter: Rita Hayworth. In the '40s, the actress used liner to draw into the dip in her cupid's bow, almost appearing to flatten her top lip — something we saw a lot of during Hayworth's time.

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Photo: SNAP/REX USA.

Parallel Lips

Joan Crawford was also an example of this flattened Cupid's bow.

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Photo: SNAP/REX USA.

Sexpot Flare

And then, there was Marilyn. During the '50s, the blonde bombshell drew severe lines to accentuate her cupid's bow, but overdrew the outer corners of her lips. This gave her a flared-lip look — incredibly sexy when paired with a red lacquer.

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Photo: James Purssell/REX USA.

'90s Revival

Lipliner kind of died down through the '60s and '70s in favor of a more natural look. But, when it came back, it returned with a vengeance. Naomi Campbell's dark lipliner helps to exaggerate the natural shape of her mouth, but in a very obvious way. While the early users of pencil blended their shades so the look would seem realistic, women in the late '80s and early '90s were not ashamed of showing off their liner.

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Photo: Nils Jorgensen/REX USA.

Contrasting Colors

As the decade progressed, the trend grew to epic proportions — with attempts to create the illusion of fuller lips. Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is a good example of this. By over-drawing with a dark line and filling in the mouth with a lighter shade, her lips appear a lot larger. But, women were still using contrasting shades, so the illusion wasn't quite an illusion.

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Photo: BEImages/Rex USA.

Colorful Contour

Once the early aughts hit, liner started to migrate in towards the lips. Case in point: Lil Kim. Instead of a thin line around the outer edge, Kim's lines went thicker and further in. The result? Contoured lips with a ton of dimension.

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Photo: Jim Smeal/BEImages.

Bigger Is Better

Pencil kind of went poof in favor of lip gloss and all-out lip colors before it had its second resurgence — mostly exemplified by overdrawn and bold dimension on none other than Kylie Jenner. Kylie uses coordinating colors of liner and lipstick to draw outside of her natural lip line and then fill it in. This brings the trendy lip shape to the largest it's ever been.

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